You find out about the case before jury selection. Voir dire probes for possible biases you might have about the case and the defendant so they have to tell you about the charges. The case I got released from recently was about a non-fatal knife attack.

The big fines and stuff are, I think, usually not imposed unless you get in their face about refusing. I missed a summons once and said oops, my bad. They said fine, we'll send you another one.

I think I've gone 5 or so times and only made it to voir dire once. Maybe that says they send more summons than they really have to.